1. Field of Invention
This invention relates generally to hairpin-forming oligonucleotides.
2. Related Art
With the rapid advances of modem pharmacology, effective drugs have been discovered for many diseases. However, many of these drugs have undesirable side effects due to their poor distinction between sick cells and healthy cells. For instance, many chemotherapy agents act on cancer cells that are actively dividing and replicating. Unfortunately, these agents do not discriminate between cancer cells and actively dividing normal cells such as blood cells forming bone marrow, cells in the digestive tract, hair follicles, and reproductive cells. As such, the effectiveness of these drugs is limited because dosage levels and treatment frequency cannot exceed the tolerance levels of normal cells.
One approach to minimizing the side effects of a drug is to target processes predominantly associated with disease states. For example, angiogenesis is essential for tumor growth but less essential in the normal adult. Therefore, compounds that target angiogenesis may be less toxic. Similarly, compounds that limit tumor metastasis may have less side effects. Notwithstanding these and other approaches to drug development, there is a continuing need to develop drugs having reduced side effects.